Anthony Scaramucci resigned Tuesday from his role at Tufts University, after threatening to sue a student who had written an unflattering opinion piece about him in the student newspaper.
Scaramucci, who was briefly a spokesman for President Donald Trump, is an alumnus of the university and began serving on the Board of Advisors to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 2016.
This fall, a petition circulated among students, alumni and some faculty, asking that Scaramucci be removed from the board because they felt he had displayed poor judgment on several public occasions. A student at Fletcher, Camilo Caballero, wrote two opinion pieces for the student newspaper, the Tufts Daily, earlier this month saying Scaramucci was unfit for the role.
“If his credentials lie in the billions of dollars he made on Wall Street, then we have, as a school, abandoned our principles and vision,” Caballero wrote.
An attorney retained by Scaramucci sent a letter to Caballero and to the editor in chief of the paper, Gil Jacobson, demanding a retraction and an apology, and threatening a defamation suit.
Samuel Lieberman, Scaramucci’s attorney, said in an email Monday evening that Caballero had presented as fact that Scaramucci is an unethical opportunist, when there is no basis for making that assertion. Scaramucci will vigorously defend his integrity against false allegations, he wrote. “Mr. Caballero can end this now by apologizing for the statements where he crossed the line.”
The Tufts Daily published the letter, along with links to the editorials, with all of the original text.
Lieberman and Scaramucci did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Gil Jacobson, the editor in chief of the student newspaper, said Tuesday, “Any article or opinion piece we put out can have consequences in the real world and we have to be prepared for a wide range of actionable consequences to happen as a result of what we put out.” He said the opinion pieces remain unchanged on the web site.
University officials had invited Scaramucci to talk with students Monday evening, but canceled the invitation after learning of the letter.
A message was sent to members of the Fletcher school community Tuesday, according to university spokesman Patrick Collins: “This morning, Anthony Scaramucci informed The Fletcher School that he is resigning his position on the school’s Board of Advisors, effective immediately. We thank Mr. Scaramucci for his past service to Tufts and wish him well.”
The notice was signed by the school’s dean, Admiral James Stavridis, and the provost and senior vice president of Tufts, David Harris.
